Not that Bill Murray needs any help in the “being beloved by all” department, but there were a couple interesting tidbits about him in the Vulture piece “24 Things I Learned While Writing My Book About Wes Anderson,” by Matt Zoller Seitz. Who, as clever readers may have already gleaned, recently wrote a book about Wes Anderson. I hope the book has a whimsical cover with big yellow text and old timey pictures of trains. (Ooh, I was partially right).

One bit, Bill Murray only made $9,000 on Rushmore:

16. Bill Murray worked on Rushmore for scale.

He got a piece of the profits, but his day rate was Screen Actors Guild minimum. By Anderson’s estimate, Murray made about $9,000 from acting in Rushmore.

Sure, but you can’t put a price on all those monochromatic suit-and-tie combos.

Not only that, but when the studio didn’t want to spring for a helicopter shot, Murray offered to pay for it himself, even though it cost almost three times his salary:

17. When Disney didn’t want to pay for a helicopter shot for Rushmore’s “A Quick One While He’s Away” montage, Murray wrote a check to cover the costs of chopper rental.

The helicopter shot ended up being cut from the film anyway, but Anderson still has Murray’s un-cashed check for $25,000, $16,000 more than he was paid for acting in the movie.

Here’s that montage:

This sequence makes me misty. Wes Anderson’s recent stuff all seems so mannered compared to this. (And did you catch the Pagoda cameo at 1:30? RIP.)

18. The role of Royal Tenenbaum was written for Gene Hackman “against his wishes.”

Hackman told Anderson, “I don’t like it when people write for me, because you don’t know me, and I don’t want what you think is me.”

That seems like a reasonable pet peeve for a famous actor that people think they know, but on the other hand, the real Hackman supposedly called Wes Anderson a c*nt and told him to “pull up your pants and act like a man,” which, to be fair, sounds exactly like something Royal Tenenbaum would say.

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I’m writing a movie with Gene Hackman in mind: He plays Wonder Woman, but has Borderline Personality Disorder, and is just an old man dressed as Wonder Woman who wanders Hollywood aimlessly. He also throws his feces at shopping windows and yells fake Mandarin at park benches…

I may have my Filmdrunk membership revoked for admitting this, but I LOATHED Rushmore. It was like Catcher in the Rye for me – I know I’m supposed to like it and find it brilliant, but all I want to do is punch the main character in the face. Not even the lengthy portion of The Who’s “A Quick One (While He’s Away)” could come remotely close to saving this movie for me, and it’s entirely possible that I like that song more than anyone else in the world.

I still like it a lot and I agree that Max is a reprehensible twat-waffle, which I always saw as kind of the point. He gets better as the film goes on and he learns to grow up a little and stop being such a shitty brat. I had to fight every inch of my being from wanting to hate the movie, though, because I had this mental picture of some hipster ass watching it and idolizing his precociousness (ugh). I have a similar reaction to all of his films for the same reason, I know so many shitty people who idolize him and seem to miss the point entirely.

“That seems like a reasonable pet peeve for a famous actor that people think they know”

eh, i don’t really think so. hackman seems to be under the impression that someone writing a part for an actor is some sort of insinuation that the writer thinks he knows who Hackman actually is and that’s absurd to me. they’re obviously writing towards his general on screen demeanor, and only a cranky pretentious asshole would act like he doesn’t have a vibe or personality traits that repeat in his characters.